Anticlimax: The Ending That Should NEVER Be
by Candyland
Summary: [One-shot] A look at a prospective ending for Detective Conan--the ending like you've never seen it and never WANT to see it!


**AN: **A friend of mine made this suggestion, and I just could not help myself. I just couldn't resist. It was too tempting, and it was a chance to try something completely different, ya know? And for the record, in no way, shape, or form is this intended to be a serious fic. Bear that in mind, please. Thank you.

So now, witness the ending that I don't think ANYONE really wants! See the closing that shouldn't be! Feel your jaw drop as everything we've been working towards and waiting for in the series DOESN'T happen! Gape as such trivial things like _continuity_ and _timelines_ are thrown merrily to the four winds! The ending that will probably make someone out there want to hunt me down and hurt me…please don't hit me. Don't touch me. In fact, don't even look at me. I bruise easily ::grin::

**BIG IMPORTANT DEDICATION THING: **This story is dedicated to my dear friend **Fred the Mutant Pickle**. Freddie was the one who inspired and challenged me to write this story, and listened patiently while I bounced ideas off of him, and waited patiently for me to actually write the thing. So Fred, this one's for you. I hope it measures up to your idea.

I don't own Detective Conan or any of the related characters. Blaaaaaaaaaah…

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**Anticlimax: The Ending That Should NEVER Be**

Humming lightly to himself, Kuroba Kaito, wrapped in the snowy guise of his alter-ego, the Phantom Thief Kaitou Kid, did one final equipment check. "Card gun, check. Extra ammo for said card gun, check. Flash grenades, check. Glider, check. Obnoxious note for Nakimori, check. Jelly donut in case I get hungry, check." A few more items were rattled off, and he was finally satisfied that all was in place.

"Off we go," he murmured, adjusting his white top hat so that it sat at juuuuuuuuust the right angle on his head. After all, a Phantom Thief had to be meticulous about every detail, and appearance was no exception. He couldn't go gallavanting in circles around Nakimori without looking his best!

In and out—easy as that. Simple as…well, gallavanting in circles around Nakimori, actually.

There was always the off chance that something could go wrong. But he took comfort in the fact that no matter how bad things could potentially go wrong, nothing could _ever_ be as bad as the dust bunny incident. They did _not_ talk about the dust bunny incident.

As the time appointed in the riddle arrived, he grinned. God, the adrenaline rush was amazing! "Showtime," he murmured to an audience that at the moment consisted only of stars. And he threw the switch that plummeted the museum into neart-total darkness.

The heist went off without a hitch. He descended into the usual chaos—wasn't pandemonium wonderful?—and snatched the evening's prize from its pedestal. He then proceeded to jump around a little bit, leading the Taskforce (his most loyal, if captive, audience, as he often thought of them) in a rousing game of Tag, which included him actually stepping on a few backs ("Ouch!"), shoulders, ("Yikes!"), and heads (_CRASH!_) before he decided enough was enough. In keeping with the manners his mother had instilled in him, he tipped his hat to a few ladies in the room (all of whom promptly swooned) and swept up towards the ceiling, cape billowing behind him very dramatically.

It was another perfect crime. It went off without a single hitch—except for one little, tiny, eensy-weensy, microscopic problem. So small it should have been insignificant and completely unnoticable, but unfortunately, it wasn't. Kaito noticed it very quickly.

His hand closed around empty air.

As Kaito tumbled backwards, away from the ceiling and safety, down towards the waiting arms of half the city's police department (and coincidentally, the father of the girl he passionately loved), he stared up at the thin metal bar he had been aiming for. He could have sworn it was laughing at him. Not just laughing—taunting. It was pointing at him and cackling, thinking, 'Man, I got you good! Sucker!'

He resisted the urge to give the bar the finger; it would be a direct violation of Poker Face, and it wouldn't help anything. Besides, such displays weren't part of the Code of the Phantom Thief, and he could get in big trouble. Union rules and all.

Instead, he sighed. _Well, this sucks._

Apparently, he had been moving in super slow motion, because he had time to think up about a hundred more words and phrases—some of them extremely creative and describing a few positions that were anatomically impossible—to describe the level of suckiness of his situation before he felt hands on his cape. He bit back a few choice words of instruction for those people to lay off the outfit. Before long, he was completely lost in a jumbled tangle of arms and hands, all of them seemingly police officers, grabbing at him and passing him along.

Well, scratch that. Judging by where a few hands were feeling and a couple of hysterical squeals and giggles, it seemed that a couple of his loyal fangirls (based on the pitches of the voices, he guessed they were middle schoolers) had taken advantage of the situation to sneak into the police line and…well, 'grope' was the best word he could come up with.

Honestly, they were too young to be trying to grab him there!

But the thoughts were fleeting and short-lived, as he finally felt concrete under his…nose. Somebody had flipped him over, and he was eating asphalt. His hands were cuffed behind him in a heartbeat, and then more hands—honestly, what was with these people?—were hauling him to his feet and towards a squad car. The two guys dragging him along looked more like gorillas than actual people; suspended between them, his toes were barely dragging on the ground.

_Shit…Aoko's gonna have a fit…_ he pondered briefly as he climbed passively into the backseat; his hat fell off from the maneuver, and he watched with some amusement through the car window as about fifty prepubescent girls doggy-piled on top of it, each trying valiantly to claim it for her own.

Outside, Nakimori was cackling like some deranged mad scientist.

Kaito sighed. _He picked a hell of a day to quit smoking…_ He remembered Aoko saying something to that effect at school. Aoko…she was going to be veeeeeeeeeery upset with him. Potential hatred there…

Still, he was silent as Nakimori dragged him back out of the car and unmasked him before all his adoring fans, ripping the monocle off for all to see his true face. There was a moment of dead silence; then the fangirls started screaming twice as loud. Kaito actually saw signs that were pleading with him to father children with the adolescent female signbearers.

As he was shoved into the car for a second time, a horrible, terrible, unpleasant, not-nice thought struck him. It was a thought that made him tremble with fear.

How the _hell_ was he going to explain this to his mother?!?

o

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Kudo Shinichi was depressed and thinking about Mouri Ran, the love of his life, and whether or not he should tell her the truth about Conan. This should surprise no one, because he's spent half the bloody series doing that. If it does surprise you, stop reading and go rewatch the show. You are not yet a fan.

_Oh my beloved Ran…_ he thought in depression. _I wish we could be together, but to tell you the truth would mean that you die…not quite sure how that works, but hey, it's kept my mouth shut for the other four hundred or so episodes. The pain in my heart at having to hide from you and lie to you like this is as intense as the heartburn I get after I eat at Taco John's—the beef softshells, though, not the chicken ones. I like the chicken ones, especially with extra cheese…_

Ai seemed surprisingly cheerful, though. Perhaps it was the fifth of vodka (no pun intended) she had inhaled earlier that morning after Agasa had once again blown half the lab sky-high. In fact, Shinichi was fairly certain he heard her giggling and singing to herself as she putzed around the lab, trying to find the antidote that would them to their normal adult selves.

Sighing and trying desperately to shake off his oh-so-not-happy thoughts, he pushed the door to the lab open and wandered in, hands buried in his pockets. Agasa-hakase was nowhere to be found, but Haibara Ai was there, seemingly hard at work.

"I feel pretty, oh so pretty…" she trilled, followed by a round of giggles.

Shinichi raised an eyebrow, but otherwise made no comment. Instead he picked up the newspaper on the desk, hopped into the desk chair, and opened the paper with the intention of devouring it from cover to cover and hopefully finding something interesting. Perhaps the crossword puzzle…

His eyes scanned over the front page—and froze.

There, declared in bold letters on the front page, was something he never wanted to see. Something he had never expected to see. The most horrifying thing he had ever encountered…

_OPERA STAR WEDS GOAT-MAN!_

No, no, below that.

_MYSTERY WRITER MURDERED!_

Yes, that's the one.

Wide blue eyes scanned over the article, taking in every awful word. The article outlined how the world-renowned mystery writer, Kudo Yusaku had been found dead in the kitchen of the Los Angeles home he shared with his wife Yukiko, a former actress and model; her body had been discovered on the staircase. Both had been shot at point-blank range in the head. The article also highlighted that their son, Shinichi, a renowned teenage detective in Japan, had been missing for quite some time. No evidence, no leads, police baffled, nonexistant suspects still at large.

"Kudo, I think somebody piked the spunch…heehee, I said spunch…" Ai giggled, weaving over to the chair. "Spuuuuuuuuunch…is something wrong?"

There was a whoosh of papers falling as the newspaper dropped from Conan's nerveless fingers. Then there was a loud thump as the chibified detective fell sideways out of the chair in a dead faint.

Ai looked down at the unconscious form on the floor "Uhhh…are you okay?" She picked up the paper on the second try, after her fingers had closed around empty air the first time—she had wondered why she saw two papers when she knew they only got one. She squinted carefully at the words on the page, trying to make them come into focus. But finally, she got the general idea—the poor guy had just found out that his parents had been brutally murdered.

However, she was too drunk to really process the full implications of that, and instead opted to just fall over and hum to herself while thinking that 'spunch' was, indeed, a funny word, and looking at all those pretty lights on the ceiling. They seemed to be dancing…looked like the Cha-Cha Slide…

o

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It was a very good day to be evil, Gin reflected as he got up that morning. He picked up his Hairbursh of Evil and brushed his blonde Hair of Evil—he was so proud of it, really he was. Then he put on his Black Trenchcoat of Evil and adjusted his Hat of Evil. Once evilly attired, he walked down the stairs and got in his Black Car of Evil and went to the Black Organization's Headquarters.

Of Evil.

The blonde he-devil walked through the darkened halls. The Seven Demonic Heads that were their leaders were in the conference room, discussing the idea of having casual Fridays, as the crimson fires of Hell itself spouted from the floors. Screams pierced the air at regular intervals. Britney Spears and the Macarena were playing twenty-four-seven.

Truly, Hell on Earth.

But Gin was on a mission. He had an evil message to deliver to his evil leader, Vermouth.

The doors opened before him—but were they evil doors, he wondered?—as he stepped into Vermouth's office. She was sitting in the enormous desk chair, smoking. Terrible habit…

"I have an evil—er, I have a message for you," Gin said, smirking like he always does.

"T-t-t-t-today, Junior," Vermouth shot back after a dramatic (and evil) moment of silence.

"We found Sherry," he intoned melodramatically.

"Good. Kill her." She loved giving that order. It made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Gin fished into the pocket of his Evil Trenchcoat and pulled out a long gold chain. At the end of it dangled a very strange green stone. "Oh, and we also found the Pandora Gem. Beat the Phantom Thief to it. He got caught last night. Stupid kid."

"So now we can be immortal and evil, instead of just plain evil?" Vermouth jumped to her feet. "God, that's a turn-on!" The doors slammed closed, and neither of them emerged for quite some time.

(Well, if THAT isn't the worst mental picture (of evil) in history, I don't know what is. ::the sane and sensible readers feel the urge to flame the author relentlessly and then leave::)

o

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"I wonder what's going on…" Ran wondered out loud.

She had reason to be curious, though. Kogoro had suddenly gone barrelling out of the house, saying something about cracking a big case. He'd left nearly an hour ago, and so far, neither his daughter nor his young charge knew what was going on.

"Who knows?" Conan deadpanned, though Shinichi's brain was going about a hundred miles a minute. _What case? Megure hasn't sent anything our way for a while. There haven't been any new clients in about a week. I wish I knew what he was talking about..._

He was still slightly numb after the shock of reading the paper earlier that day. He'd had a nice hysterical fit over at Agasa's, running around and screaming and throwing things and just generally freaking out and being a nuisance. This had culminated (and stopped entirely) when the still-tipsy Haibara Ai had smacked him upside the head with enough force to knock him into a nearby bookshelf; this was accompanied by an order to 'shut the hell up or else.' He'd then resorted to curling up in a chair and whimpering in misery over the fate of his parents.

What did it all mean? Everything had been going along quite nicely, then BAM! Out of the blue, his semi-ordered little world had once again been shaken to the very core. It was a miracle that he had any wits left about him, really. But he'd slapped the Conan-mask™ back on his face as he'd walked back through the Agency's door, and remained silent in his ever-present, ever-growing depression.

But back to the mystery of Kogoro's mystery.

Excusing himself, the diminuitive detective tiptoed into Kogoro's office and peered around. The lights were off, and it didn't look like there was any reason for him not to go have a peek around. Maybe he would find something interesting that he could use to distract himself from his depression.

He really needed to see a shrink about this…too bad they were probably all Black Organization operatives. Things tended to happen like that, you know. They were everywhere. The walls had ears…

Focusing. Focusing on task at hand.

Peering over the top of the desk, he saw a surprisingly neat stack of papers and folders and the like, sitting nicely on top of the rest of the mess that was so commonplace to Mouri's desk. Clamboring up onto the desk chair, he began shuffling through the various articles—they ranged from simple memos and notes scrawled on napkins (all in Kogoro's near-illegible handwriting) to professional reports and documentations marked by official seals and stamps.

With practiced eyes, he began scanning the pages, habitually prepared to pick out whatever various parts that struck him as important. But within a few words, his blue eyes were wide in shock, horror, amazement, and other adjectives for surprise and awe.

Marked across the pages, whether in official police type or Kogoro's messy scrawl, were reams of notes and documentations detailing the activities of a secret criminal organization—a far-reaching crime syndicate with a special talent for assassination, but who dabbled in everything from blackmail and exortion to illegal drug testing (when Shinichi read those words, Conan's little eyebrow began twitching).

But on a piece of plain notebook paper were the words that confirmed his sudden suspicions and made his jaw drop straight through the floor. A reference to how the members of this top-secret syndicate always dressed in black.

Shinichi resisted the urge to make any M.I.B. references (okay, maybe one—did they have a flashy memory thing too?), and let the paper drop back onto the desk. He sank back into the desk chair, his mind now reeling from a multitude of things, a plethora of theories, realizations, and unanswered questions chasing themselves around his mind.

His parents' death.

The Black Organization.

Kirby from that video game—why was he pink?

So many unanswered questions…

But the sad fact had presented itself to him—he wasn't the only one investigating the Black Organization. And from the looks of it, his guardian had managed to collect a lot more information on them then he had. But how in the hell…

Was it actually possible that Mouri Kogoro was smarter than he let on?

No…no, that was ridiculous.

o

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Hattori Heiji picked up the phone on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Heiji?"

"Kazuha! What's going on?"

Toyama Kazuha's voice was frantic over the phone. "I just figured something out!"

"Well, what is it?" he pressed after a long silence.

"I've been watching for a while, and I think Edogawa Conan is actually Kudo Shinichi," she crowed. "I'm guessing he got caught following some shady figures, and they forced him to swallow some kind of drug that shrank him, and he's hiding out now because it's some kind of evil crime syndicate that's trying to take over the world and if he's found, he and everyone he knows will be killed, so he lied to us while trying to find the guys who shrank him so he can get an antidote and turn back to normal and bust them!" Kazuha ended a very long run-on sentence, then paused to catch her breath.

There was dead silence on the other end of the line. Then, slowly, Heiji said, "Kazuha…I'm pretty sure you don't smoke. So what have you been eating today?"

A pause. "Well…the mushrooms in that stew did taste kinda funny…"

She heard a crash on the other end of the line as Heiji fell over.

o

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Staggering back out to where Ran was still sitting, Shinichi crawled back up onto the couch beside her and curled up into a little ball, still trying desperately to process everything.

Ran noticed the not-so-little boy's mood, and smiled. "Let's see if there's something on TV!" she suggested brightly, switching on the set and settling back to watch with her. The news came blaring on.

"Our top story tonight, a long-standing criminal organization has been brought to its knees," the greasy-looking anchorman said smoothly, reading from a stack of papers in his hands.

Feeling poleaxed was getting to be a regular occurrence, it seemed. It marked the second time that day that Conan's (aka Shinichi's) jaw had gone through the floorboards. He listened in horror as a feeling of increasing numbness swept over him.

It was true—Mouri Kogoro had cracked the Black Organization. The story was all over the news, how it was the biggest case of the century. The newscast highlighted some of the syndicate's known activities, and spoke at length of Mouri's supposed brilliance.

"Ohmigod, Dad's a hero!" Ran half-squealed in amazement and delight.

Beside her, Conan felt faint. This increased exponentially as the news shifted to a potentially related case: a private home had exploded a short time ago. Within the burning wreckage, they had found several bodies—one adult and four children, all killed with a pistol at close range.

Agasa-hakase…Ayumi…Genta…Mitsuhiko…and Ai…all gone, murdered. Exactly like his parents…this had the Black Organization's evil little fingerprints all over it. But they'd been busted—by Mouri Kogoro, of all goddamn people. How could they have…never mind. It didn't matter.

Jumping out a window was starting to sound like a mighty fine idea…either that, or experience one of the many interesting things he could do with knives or other similarly sharp objects.

He was so lost that he barely noticed that the newscaster was now relaying the tale of the Kaitou Kid's capture, and all the accompanying information—name, age, school, blood type, and interviews with police, victims, and squealing fangirls who pleaded that their idol be released.

A knock at the door made them both jump, but Ran jumped up and ran to open.

"Hattori-kun!" she exclaimed in surprise as the Osakan youth sprinted past her, Kazuha in tow. The ponytailed girl looked downright bewildered as she followed her not-boyfriend.

"Ku—I mean, Conan!" Heiji barely caught himself.

"Oh, honestly, Hattori!" Ran huffed; she rolled her eyes and threw her hands up towards the heavens in exasperation. "Would you quit calling him Kudo already? You're making it really hard for me to pretend I don't know!!"

The room went dead silent as everyone processed this declaration.

Then Heiji slowly said, "Soooooo…anyway, _Conan_, I'm guessing that you've already heard about everything that's happened." There was no response, as the diminuitive detective was curled up in the fetal position on the couch, eyes wide and unseeing, rocking himself back and forth while sucking his thumb and humming 'Rock-a-Bye Baby' to himself.

"Conan-kun, are you okay?" Ran asked, leaning over the boy in concern. "I know, I'll make you some soup." Because that's what she always does something's wrong with the kid—in Mouri Ran's world, soup was the ultimate cure for everything.

"I don't think that's quite it, nee-chan," Heiji sweatdropped.

There was another knock on the door. Kazuha, being the one closest to it, stepped towards it. "I'll get it!" There was a scurry of footsteps, followed by the click of a door opening, and Kazuha's voice cheering, "Mouri Detect—" A slight shriek, then—

_BWAHM!_

Followed by a thump.

The room went dead silent. Even Shinichi-now-Conan snapped out of his depressed, half-crazed, infant-like stupor to turn towards the sound. The horrible, terrible, frightening, not-good, bad sound.

A gunshot.

o

o

The papers heralded the news the next day.

Three teenagers and a child had been found dead of gunshot wounds in the remains of the Mouri Detective Agency. Remains, because it had been burned to the ground, in a manner reminiscient of another multiple murder that had happened earlier on the same day.

Further tests proved that it was, indeed, the same gun.

A suspect was apprehended later—he was identified as a member of the Black Organization, the same that Mouri Kogoro had busted earlier. The captured man—who had very lovely blonde hair and evil eyes—wore the trademark black trenchcoat of the evil crime syndicate, though he would admit to nothing. However, some nice police work (for once) ensured that the whole criminal organization was going down.

All of this, however, was of little importance to a few poor souls, whose lives had been lost at the very last moment. And some of them were not very happy about it. In fact, others were downright pissed…

o

"So you WERE Conan the whole damn time?!?" Mouri Ran roared, her snowy white wings fluttering behind her as though to drive home the force of her anger. The halo floating over her head shook with her barely-contained fury.

In front of her, Kudo Shinichi (in his seventeen-year-old form) cowered, hiding behind his own wings. "I'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorrypleasedon'thurtmeIcanexplain…Ran, what are you doing with that harp…**OH MY GOOD GOD!!!!!**" The next words out of Shinichi's mouth were very colorful and very creative, in about five different languages, and left very little to the imagination.

Nearby, Heiji winced. Ouch…hopefully, Ran's rage would wear itself out quickly—after all, eternity was an awfully long time to be angry on her part, and it was an even _longer_ time for those who had to listen to them.

On the other hand, Kazuha was there, too…as were Kudo's parents, the old doctor, and several children who seemed beyond confused as to where they were and why their beloved Ran-neechan was chewing out Shinichi-niisan, who looked an _awful_ lot like Conan…

Maybe Eternity wouldn't be so bad…

o

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Kaito was bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, booooooooooooooooored…

He'd been staring at the ceiling for a while, but it refused to do any tricks. So then he thought about all the ways that his father was probably rolling over in his grave and beating his head against a heavenly wall. Then he wondered about his mother and how she would probably ground him until he graduated from college. Not that it mattered much, but oh well.

Hakuba had come to visit him earlier—well, 'visit' wasn't quite the right word. 'Attempt to rip a new one' was more like it. How dare the Kid be caught by someone other than the annoying blonde guy? How dare he?!? The screaming lecture had lasted twenty full minutes, at which point other people had started complaining, and Hakuba had been escorted away—still screaming out questionable statements about Kuroba's parentage.

Now he was alone with his thoughts again. His troubled, jumbled, tangled thoughts of woe and misery, of his failed mission to avenge his father by bringing his murderers to justice and destroying the Pandora Gem, of spending years in prison, of Aoko hating him forever…

Hey, they'd missed a deck of cards! WOOT!

Pulling out his remaining deck, he set about distracting himself in the best way he knew how: goofing off. He started shuffling the deck, and before long, he was flipping them around, in and out, in circles around his hands. Pretty soon, passers-by were stopping to watching, crowding around his cell to observe the living legend as he relaxed. He finally snapped the last card on top of the stack in his waiting palm, and stood up to bow and acknowledge his copious amounts of applause.

He was nothing, if not a showman.

He was also very surprised when the guard appeared a few minutes later and told him he had a visitor—who would visit him besides Hakuba? He was even more shocked when Aoko appeared. And she did _not_ look happy. She said a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense to him—something about Fate and that kind of crap—but that might have been because he was trying to register the fact that she was there at all. Then suddenly, it all became clear.

He had been surprised and shocked within the space of a few scant seconds.

But now, he was downright gobsmacked when she pulled a gun out of her pocket and shot him in the head. His last conscious thought before he fell into the nice, warm, painless darkness was how strangely nice the cool breeze felt on his brain…

A second later, Aoko joined him in death by the same gun. Psychiatrists would later dub it 'Romeo and Juliet Syndrome.' But that meant nothing to Kaito and Aoko; the two young lovers frolicked up to the sky together, where they found that yes, indeed, Kaito's father _had_ been beating his head against a heavenly wall in aggravation.

And amazingly enough, he found that Kudo and Hattori were there as well. Once Kudo removed the harp from where Ran had forcibly inserted it, the chase they had enjoyed so much in life could continue into the next life. Unfortunately, first he had to deal with Aoko, who was beyond delighted to learn that the heavenly janitorial staff kept quite a selection of brooms, feather dusters, and the all-important mops around, within handy reach. Kaito was going _down_.

And so although nobody lived, there was a Happily Ever After.

…of Evil.

o

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**AN: **It had to be done. I feel no shame about writing it. I think it needed to be done.

You would not BELIEVE how much fun this really was. I just thought of everything that I figured most people DIDN'T want to see happen…and put _most of it_ in one fic. I say 'most of it' because there were a few things that I think nobody wanted to see FOR GOOD REASON. Trust me, it could have gotten very dirty and very _illegal_ very fast. But I don't do that.

So let's recap—Kaito gets arrested, someone finally figures Conan out (weren't expecting Kazuha, were ya?), Kogoro is the one that busts the Black Organization, said Black Org. gets the Pandora Gem (Kaito's target), and everyone dies. Did I cover it all? I think so. Yay fun. I hope you at least got a chuckle out of it, if nothing else. Perhaps a Chuckle of Evil? Thanks for reading!


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